Tuesday, April 24, 2007

IIT's could do better with the Cream of the Nation

GG,You have touched on a very sore point. Your JEE rank determines your branch of engineering even before you find out what engineering is all about. There were chaps who could never do isometrics or visualise 3'd images.

The electronics class was virtually reserved for the top rankers who all chose the branch as it had good job prospects then. Out of a class of about 40 not even ten stuck to electronics. Most went to management and other fields. This to me is a correctable situation.

In Australia admission is based on the University admission Index and students choose what they want to study in any of the state universities

Some one like me dreamed of becoming an electronics engineer and JEE rank denied me the opportunity and forced civil engg down my throat. I had no choice as my dad insisted I had to do Civil too. I believe I wasted so many years at IIT and had to do a masters in Sydney to switch to a field of my choice - Noise control Engineering.

I strongly believe that the branch should be allottted after students complete the second year and after an aptitude test and interview by faculty professors. If faculty can choose their students I am sure IITs will havemuch better engineers tha they have been producing in the last 15 years.

It is also sad to see so many IITians joining the recruitment game that needs no B Tech Degree.

All the students who want to do MBA might as well be allowed to study business at IITs as opposed to doing Civil or metallurgy and then switching to finance.

My discussions with recent graduates from IITs suggests the current crop work pretty hard in the first two years and score enough marks ( in the 90's) and then take it easy in third and fourth years where real engineeringis taught and even if they average 70% they are quite happy with the overall aggregate. Now when I say Take it easy it means their focus is in teaching themselves computer languages and programming I am told.

In one way it is a total waste of time for faculty members in Aero, Civil. Metallurgy Chemical etc knowing pretty well that majority of their b tech students will be heading for the IT industry or Finance. And we wonder whythere are no B tech students doing research at IITs

Yes IITs were structured to meet the demands of the sixties and seventies and in the year 2007 there is an urgent need to overhaul the system and produce graduates to meet market demand. What is wrong in limiting Civil, metallurgy, chem, aero etc to just twenty seats and allow 300 students to do computer sciene or computer engg etc ? Every one will be better off in theend

On 22/4/07 12:37 PM, "gopala GG ganesh" wrote:

> Rambo:> > I believe the JEE as currently set up is unfair to poor students, rural> students and those who are non-English medium. Thanks to technology, this can> be solved quite effectively and easily. The IITs should jointly set up an> online coaching scheme which is widely accessible. Students of means will> access from home, while the others would go to dedicated, subsidized nternet> cafes franchised to retired teachers that limit access only to coaching> activities. Among other things, the coaching would incorporate point and click> explanations of topics, problems ertc, bulletin boards to facilitate student> to student communications, in all Indian languages In addition, the site> would provide any number of practice tests etc. Let those students who are> dedicated enough to make use of the widely available resource do well in the> JEE. Also, I am not convinced that MPC proficiency equals Engg aptitude. If> you ask me, the key skill of an engineer is the ability to design things. Is> this> tested in the JEE? Had I been asked many moons ago to figure out objects from> their plan and elevation views, I would have mercifully flunked out of JEE and> IIT. My good number skills do not make me a good engineer, in spite of doing> quite well in my rather large Mech Engg branch. After IIT, I could not wait to> get the hell out of engineering. I probably would have made a good CPA and/or> income tax lawyer. Helping hide black money legally and playing stricly by all> existing rules would have been quite lucrative, given the ocean that> unaccounted money is in India. Too late!> > - gg>